


become unceasing

by beili, Val Mora (valmora)



Series: event horizon [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Food Porn, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Case, mistaken for lovers, stranded in a chalet in switzerland oh no what shall we do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-24 03:04:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6139153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili, https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Because we can’t be both lost homosexuals <i>and</i> spies,” Illya said, dryly, and sat down in the stuffed chair on the other side of the room. “You want our hosts to find us in a compromising position. To help our cover.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Napoleon said. “Is it going to be that difficult?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	become unceasing

**Author's Note:**

> What we mean by the “food porn” tag: food in the story isn't used in a sexual context, but readers with food-related issues are advised to tread carefully. Furthermore, use of this fic as a source of medical advice is contraindicated.
> 
> We’ve taken the liberty of transliterating Ilya’s name in accordance with the spelling in Russian, though our tags and summary agree with the general consensus spelling for ease of sorting.
> 
> The title is taken from a poem by Kikaku Takarai:  
> 村雨も松風ほとはなかぬなり  
> Passing showers  
> like the wind through the pines  
> become unceasing
> 
> (Trans. the authors; original text _宝井其角全集_.)
> 
> Many thanks to the lovely [idoitbrilliantly](http://idoitbrilliantly.tumblr.com/) for the beta! Any remaining mistakes are the result of our own stubbornness.

Napoleon's head ached. His fever must have returned, because even under two blankets, he couldn't get warm. He tried curling up on himself, but his ribs protested. A shiver ran through him, then another one. His skin crawled; his toes felt like ice.

He startled a little when the mattress dipped on the other side.

"Hey," Ilya said quietly, "It's all right. Just me." Next thing Napoleon knew, Ilya had slid in behind him, an arm was settled over his side, and another blanket was spread over them both. Napoleon opened his mouth to protest, but all he could manage was a groan.

"It's all right," Ilya said again. "Thought you might need some extra warmth. Could hear your teeth chattering from over there.”

Napoleon would never have thought this to be comfortable, but then a large hand covered his. The warmth was seeping into his back and legs, radiated from Ilya's palm, Ilya's soft breath stirring the hair at the base of Napoleon's neck. He wanted to lean into it. He wanted to squirm away.

"Sleep," Ilya said, his voice almost gentle. "Sleep, Cowboy."

 

Napoleon woke up in the morning to find himself caught under three blankets, a heavy arm still slung around his middle, his nose pressed into the side of Ilya's neck.

That neck was close enough to kiss, if Napoleon wanted. He was too sick to want, and his mouth was sticky-dry.

He tried to lean up, in case Ilya had left a glass of water on a nightstand, but the pain sent him sprawling back down into the sheets. He went back to sleep.

 

By the next day he could sit up, with help, so Ilya brought him reheated canned soup broth, and Napoleon fed himself.

"You have two cracked ribs, a twisted ankle, a formerly dislocated shoulder, several cuts requiring stitches, and a fever," Ilya said, lounging in a stuffed armchair, his feet up on the mattress and heels digging into Napoleon’s thigh. "But there’s good news: the town doctor thinks we’re unlucky skiers."

"He does?"

"Why shouldn't he? You had a skiing accident.”

Immune by exposure to Napoleon’s glare, he continued, "I contacted UNCLE. There’s a storm coming tonight, so we’re to hold in place until the roads reopen and our extraction can be arranged.”

 

Despite Napoleon's hopes, it snowed. It snowed out the roads out of town. It probably snowed out the remains of the THRUSH installation two towns over. 

"They won't come back, no," Ilya agreed, when Napoleon ventured this as a conversational gambit, interrupting him from whatever dismal German novel he'd been reading. "Now that they know UNCLE knows where the base was, they’ll disperse."

"Lotta families with runaway husbands," Napoleon said, glancing out the window at the view of the storm that hadn't changed since he staggered his way from the bed into the chair.

He pitied the women a little. They wouldn't have known their husbands were THRUSH; it wasn't right for them to be punished for it. He might bring that up to Waverly in his next report.

"THRUSH doesn't care about gender," Ilya pointed out, in a sort of grimly approving tone. Napoleon empathized. "Many couples might both work for THRUSH. Both the husband and wife leave. Children make a good cover, too. Or the husband pretends he's been transferred and they move to his next position."

"Too bad we can't do to them what the CIA did to me," Napoleon sighed, and let his eyes close. "Brains like that, I'd want on my side."

"They've already proven they're not," Ilya said, but he was smiling when Napoleon cracked one eye open and glanced at him.

He slept in the chair, because he didn’t want to admit that Ilya had been right in telling him he shouldn’t have left the bed. He woke up in it anyway.

  

Napoleon listened to the howl of the wind beyond the chalet walls for some time before he opened his eyes. Ilya was stretched out with his novel again, his strategically placed chair blocking the light. Napoleon didn't have it in him to move just yet and watched for a while from under his lashes.

Limned in the dull yellow glow of the lamp, Ilya looked dark and monumental - like something out of a children's story, or perhaps a folk song. He'd changed into an old, worn sweater; Napoleon's eyes lingered on his shoulders, the hollow of his throat, the faint scar at the corner of his eye.

After a while, he noticed Ilya watching him back, expression unreadable.

"More soup?" Ilya said, finally. "You need to eat something before you take your pills."

 

He dreamed of the chair.

It didn't happen often - he'd had three, maybe four dreams about Rudi Teller's basement in the last few months that he could remember - but it always came with the same handful of sensations he could absolutely do without. His heart was racing. His mouth tasted like blood. There was the same feeling of sweaty, sticky, tense fear, and he couldn't breathe.

And he couldn't move.

He wanted to scream, but his lungs weren't working. He wanted to thrash, but the restraints were too tight, holding him down. This time it wasn't Rudi behind the desk with the button, it was Sanders, and Napoleon knew that the chair was not going to malfunction. There would be no escape from this.

Sanders smirked and pressed the button.

His teeth were rattling, and - someone was shaking him awake. There were hands on his shoulders, pressing him into the bed when he quivered. Someone was calling his name.

"Napoleon," Ilya was saying, quiet but urgent, "Napoleon, wake up."

Ilya's hands disappeared for an indeterminate while, but then he was back in bed, leaning on the headboard and pulling Napoleon up to rest against his chest. One large hand brushed the hair away from Napoleon's forehead, and the other brought a cup of something warm to Napoleon's lips.

Napoleon was still trying to catch his breath. He couldn't stop shivering, clammy all over with cooling sweat. The drink in the cup turned out to be tea, sweetened and soothing; he drank it all down slowly, pausing when his hand started to shake too much. He leaned against Ilya's chest with a grateful sound when he was done.

"Was just a dream," Ilya said softly.

His fingers were still carding through Napoleon's hair. Napoleon felt both exhausted and keyed up - his eyes slipped closed, but after a moment, he jerked awake again.

"Shower," Ilya said, carefully levering them both out of bed.

Napoleon did his best to make it on his own steam - he had no doubt that Ilya would carry him otherwise, like he must've done when they had crawled, battered and bruised, out of the hellhole THRUSH camped in, and staggered down the mountain in the thickening snow. It wasn't an experience Napoleon was eager to repeat.

The water pressure was pitiful, but the shower felt heavenly anyway. Napoleon all but poured himself out, to find that Ilya had changed the sheets and left a fresh set of clothes at the foot of the bed. Ilya himself was nowhere to be found, but the light was on in the other room.

Napoleon fell into bed with a sigh that he muffled in a pillow. He barely had the energy to drag a blanket over himself, and then his eyes were closing. He didn't remember any dreams.

 

He’d overexerted himself the day before; whenever he next woke he was groggy with exhaustion. The bed felt freezing, but it was hard to tell if that was sickness or temperature. He rolled over, groaned, and was nearly asleep when Ilya came in and pulled the sheets up over him a little tighter.

He grunted an acknowledgement of the gesture, and Ilya huffed in amusement.

“It would be like you to give yourself another fever out of frustration,” Ilya said, putting a hand on Napoleon's forehead. His fingers were cold. Damn it.

“I’ve been outside,” Ilya said, apologetically, and then there was pressure against Napoleon’s forehead, a warm breath gusting through his hair - Ilya taking his temperature a little more effectively, he thought, rolled over again when it was done, and let himself fall asleep once Ilya had left the room.

 

Ilya wasn't in bed with him, when Napoleon woke up; by the sound of it, he was puttering around the tiny kitchenette adjacent to the next room. Napoleon felt surprisingly normal, all things considered. His ankle ached, and his ribs protested when he tried to turn on his side, but the fever must've broken the night before.

Ilya probably heard the bedsheets rustling, because he appeared in the doorway, looked Napoleon over, nodded, and said, “Stew.”

“Canned?”

“You do _not_ want to eat my cooking,” Ilya said darkly, which Napoleon didn’t doubt. Ilya didn’t really have standards beyond ‘not completely spoiled,’ though he’d had thirds of that fish in Peru, so he at least had preferences.

“If you help me up,” Napoleon started to offer, but Ilya shook his head.

“There’s nothing to cook with. The owner only stocks this chalet when guests are expected.”

Napoleon sighed. “Onions?”

“Not even potatoes,” Ilya agreed, a little more good-naturedly.

“Please tell me there are skis or snowshoes so we can get something from a store.”

Ilya leaned a hip against the doorjamb. “There are skis. You have a twisted ankle, and neither of us has any francs left.”

Napoleon sighed. The likelihood of being able to get credit extended to them from a local store was minimal. “Stew?”

“Stew,” Ilya confirmed.

It was exactly as terrible as Napoleon had expected, but at least it was hot.

 

The day after he woke up as entirely himself, the woman they were renting the chalet from came by.

She shook snow off her boots, then shook off more by kicking the wall outside, and shed several layers once the door was closed. Napoleon, from the chair in the sitting room, watched the whole procedure with growing amazement as a fairly beautiful woman, in her early thirties, emerged from the mound of coats and leggings.

“I am sorry about the weather,” she said in German, and then, “Oh, my apologies! Your friend is awake. I am Anna.”

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t get up,” Napoleon replied, gesturing to the firmly bandaged ankle he was resting on a settee. Damn, what was the name on his current set of documents, again? Michael, that was it. “Michael Jones.”

“It’s quite all right,” she said, and came over to shake his hand. “I’m glad to see you’re doing better. My uncle was very worried when Ian,” good grief, that cover name was still ridiculous, “knocked on our door so late at night and you were unconscious.”

“I thought I was a better skier than I am,” Napoleon said cheerfully. “I’m lucky to have him.”

“Quite,” Anna said, her smile widening slightly as she looked over at Ilya, whose entire body language had shifted from his usual resting, assured danger to a sort of self-conscious, shrinking awkwardness, a man too small in spirit for his body and well aware of it. “Is there anything you need?”

“We’re running a little low on canned food, to be honest,” Ilya said, with a sheepish little shrug. It looked wrong on him, and Napoleon wished he’d at least stand up straight.

“We have some extra potatoes, carrots, and onions,” she said, “and some chicken organs and bones, if you want them. And flour and yeast, of course.”

Ilya nodded. “Thank you. It’s appreciated.”

“I’ll just go get those,” she said, gesturing to the door. As she was putting on her layers, Napoleon asked, “How long until the roads open, do you think?”

“It's been snowing hard, so a week, I think. Maybe as much as two, but by then you might be able to ski down.”

“Thanks,” Napoleon said, making eye contact with Ilya. He hoped there were enough non-dismal German novels in the chalet that he wouldn’t expire of boredom in the meantime.

 

Ilya made bread.

Napoleon had done it before, of course, but not recently - it took too long for his patience, and wasn’t terribly elegant in the process, though there was something to be said for touching a beautiful and naked woman with flour-dusted hands - and he found himself impressed. The bread wasn’t spectacular, but it was hot and fresh, and it was served with a bowl of genuinely good chicken soup.

The broth was golden and fragrant, the onions and carrots diced with precision, but not so finely they would turn into mush while cooking. Ilya had cut the potatoes into medium chunks, and there were thin noodles, like Ilya just sprinkled some into the pot as he was finishing up; the overall result was surprisingly pleasant. Ilya must've borrowed some spices from Anna, too, because the soup clearly had some black pepper, dried dill, celery and bay leaf in it - and was that a hint of basil?

“You shouldn’t have made this, Peril,” Napoleon said, over a half-empty bowl. “I’ll never believe you can’t cook now.”

“Then don’t say I didn’t warn you, next time,” Ilya said, but he was smiling down at his spoon.

 

There was, oddly enough, a little Italian-language romance novel tucked in with the Germans. Napoleon suspected an embarrassed housewife, and hoped she hadn’t missed the book too much.

It was entertaining, if nothing else: the adventures of an aspiring female artist in Renaissance Italy, torn between a wealthy suitor who would, admittedly, be able to provide the money for her to create art but didn’t approve of it; and her father’s protegé, a poor man and a sculptor who felt as she did about art, but who would support her in her ambitions only as long as her renown was less than his own.

Napoleon was rather hoping she’d pick the rich man, frankly. He’d had a lover like the sculptor once, a thief like Napoleon’s cover had been, but one who dealt in jewelry rather than art. André had taught him how to pick pockets and steal jewelry without the wearers' noticing; but the man also had been deeply temperamental, and resentful of the notoriety of Napoleon’s ostensible choice of goods. Their parting hadn’t been amicable.

In the end the rich man came around on the subject of art, fortunately, and Napoleon went to bed relieved.

 

He woke before Ilya did, the next morning. Ilya seemed to have the tendency to inch toward the wall. Napoleon didn’t blame him for that, but he did blame Ilya for crowding him so far that his knees were hanging off the mattress. It was cold.

Napoleon put his freezing knees up against Ilya’s thigh. Ilya proceeded to jerk awake, already glaring at him.

“I’ve been thrown out of bed before,” Napoleon said, “but usually not by someone who wasn’t trying to have sex with me beforehand.”

“I’m better aware of your faults,” Ilya said. His voice was very low, and very rough, and Napoleon wanted to kiss him with a sudden and embarrassing desperate urgency, especially considering Ilya was insulting him. “I don’t need to have sex with you to know what you’re like.”

“Thank God for that,” Napoleon said, nonsensically. Ilya, knowing him and being immune to his charm and yet choosing sex with him anyway: a chill dragged down his spine. “Inter-agency fraternization is too _Romeo and Juliet_ for my taste.”

 

He stayed in bed the whole day, mostly because it was cold, and he was feeling lazy with the enforced stay, as frustrating as it was. Ilya had moved on from the dismal Germans and was reading depressing Russians in German - the brick he had in his hands looked like Tolstoy, God help him.

“Is that War and Peace?” Napoleon said, craning his neck a little to see the title.

Ilya grunted.

“Have you read it before?”

“Yes,” Ilya said, shortly. He read some more, then flipped forward a few pages as if looking for something. “They translated all the French bits." It was hard to tell if he disapproved or not.

Napoleon tried to bite his tongue, he really did, but being confined to bed was boring, and he hadn’t had a decent conversation in days.

“Did they also edit the too-long sentences?” he asked.

“No,” Ilya said, but the corner of his mouth quirked up.

 

Ilya made pancakes.

If this was the reward for insulting Ilya's taste in literature, Napoleon would do it more often. The pancakes were delicious: the middle soft and golden and still sizzling a little as Ilya moved them from the pan to a plate; the edges crisp and crunchy. He didn’t put too much sugar in them, either. All in all, it was absolutely perfect, and Napoleon couldn’t help saying so. It had the effect of making Ilya blush to his ears and glare a little at the pan, but there was a small smile lurking at the corner of his mouth, too. Napoleon decided not to question it and just count it as a win.

“You definitely have hidden depths, Peril,” he said with appreciation as they polished off the pancakes.

“This is the extent of my cooking skills,” Ilya said, eyes on his empty plate. “Well, this, and -” he cast around for a suitable word in English, didn’t find one, and muttered something that Napoleon roughly translated as some kind of pasta dish; the details were unclear, but he thought he got the gist. “But anyone can make that."

“I don’t know, you certainly know your way around an excellent pancake,” Napoleon said, and watched, amused, as Ilya’s ears turned red all over again.

“You’ll have to cook the next meal,” Ilya said, even if they both knew Napoleon wasn’t quite up to it.

 

The chessboard was hidden neatly behind the dismal Germans, not shoved haphazardly onto the top shelf as it had been when Napoleon first spotted it. Which meant that Ilya had seen it too, but decided – what? No matter, Napoleon thought; at least Ilya had the decency to hide it on a lower shelf.

Napoleon had moved to the bookcase in search of entertainment – he was almost ready for a volume by some depressing Russian; he’d done so much staring at the ceiling these past few days that he was getting cranky. He had no hope of winning against someone like Ilya at chess, or even of keeping up long enough to make the game interesting, but he was nearly at his wits' end.

Ilya himself was outside, doing God knew what. The snow had let up at some point, so Ilya had pulled on his thickest borrowed sweater, a scarf, and a coat, and gone out. It was snowing again, though, big fat flakes drifting gently down to the ground, and Napoleon was starting to get a little worried.

He threw on his own coat and hobbled to the door. There was a bloodstain right under the arm, not quite visible on the dark fabric; he didn’t know how Ilya had managed to get them into Anna’s house, looking as they probably had.

Outside, the weather was utterly terrible – the wind was starting to pick up, and it was getting visibly darker. Then, before Napoleon could do anything stupid like call out, Ilya was rounding the corner, a bag clutched to his chest. “In, in,” he said, quickly, gently pushing Napoleon back inside. There were snowflakes in his hair – his hat must’ve gotten lost in their ragged descent from the destroyed base - and his cheeks were flushed with cold. The bag, though, when he put it into Napoleon’s hands, before closing the door, was very warm.

“What’s this?” Napoleon said, making no move to look inside. Ilya was shaking the snow off his coat and boots; he left the scarf on, and for a moment, Napoleon had a ridiculous urge to drag him in by the end of it and kiss him stupid. Then Ilya was rubbing his hands together to warm them up, and – Napoleon had a sudden memory of him doing exactly that before fixing Gaby’s tracker for her, back in Rome, and he had to swallow and look away.

Ilya steered them both expertly into the kitchenette, pulling out a chair for Napoleon and digging in the bag.

“Did some chores for Anna,” he said. “Wood-chopping, some fixing, that sort of thing. In exchange, she was kind enough to feed us. And we’re invited for dinner tomorrow night.”

He was unwrapping a neat, white and blue kitchen towel from around a square casserole dish, still quite warm. There were roasted potatoes with pork; homemade bread, clearly made by a hand more expert than Ilya’s; a jar of something that looked like mushrooms in some sort of sauce; and the most delicious-smelling apple pie Napoleon had ever laid eyes on.

They ate in silence. Napoleon took the plates to the sink after they were done, as Ilya put away the leftovers and filled the kettle. There was nothing resembling coffee in the cabinets, but it didn't matter - Ilya had found a dust-coated tea tin in the cupboards, and brewed it strong enough to wake the dead. They moved back into the room with their mugs, and Napoleon was busy not watching Ilya take careful bites of his piece of the pie when Ilya noticed the chessboard, sitting innocuously on a low chest of drawers by the foot of the bed.

“What’s this?” he said, suddenly careful and guarded, even though the answer was obvious. Napoleon frowned – had Ilya hidden the set because of something more serious than a childish little prank? – but there were plenty of places in the chalet Napoleon couldn’t and wouldn’t reach in his current state. If Ilya had really wanted this set to stay hidden, Napoleon would never have found it.

“I was looking for something to read,” Napoleon said, as lightly as he could manage. “But I don’t have much taste for the other three volumes of ‘War and Peace’. More of an ‘Anna Karenina’ fan, myself.”

There was a little crease between Ilya’s eyebrows, still, as Napoleon limped to the bed and propped up his ankle with a stray pillow. It ached, a persistent, dull pain; he shouldn’t have hopped around on it so much. He winced, involuntarily, and Ilya left his empty mug on the table and stalked over. With a glance at Napoleon for permission, he ran careful fingers over the bandage, feeling out the swelling over the joint. And then Ilya was moving to the other side of the mattress and setting up the board on the bed between them.

 

“You know,” Napoleon said, eventually, after Ilya annihilated him in fewer than five moves yet again, “the last time I played chess, the reward for taking the other person’s piece was a kiss.”

His brain caught up to his mouth a moment later, but Ilya’s eyebrows were already creeping up, and it was too late to take that back. Maybe the bed would swallow him whole.

“Did you even finish the game?” Ilya said, something guarded and careful in his tone.

“The next morning, actually,” Napoleon said, still reeling. Ilya hadn’t tried to punch him, though, and neither did he try to leave. He was setting up the pieces for a new game, white side of the board to Napoleon, and biting his lip, just a little; Napoleon wanted to lean in and catch it between his own teeth, just to see what Ilya would do. Probably knock him out and request a transfer the moment the storm ended, Napoleon decided, and slid back down with a sigh. What was he thinking?

“Well,” Ilya said, “it’s your move, Cowboy. And if you want to, we can.”

 

Napoleon didn’t know if Ilya was executing some kind of insanely clever chess maneuver, or if he was taken aback by Napoleon’s boldness as much as Napoleon himself, but when he left a rook directly in the way of Napoleon’s knight, Napoleon took it.

They stared at each other across the board. Ilya still had that strange, unreadable expression, not unlike the one Napoleon had seen on him when they first met officially – but he also seemed expectant, so Napoleon leaned over and pressed their lips together.

It wasn’t much of a kiss – Napoleon’s heart was racing in his chest, and in the back of his mind a tinny voice was screaming that he'd ruined everything – but when he tried to move away, Ilya caught him around the back of his neck and dragged him back up.

“This is a terrible idea,” Napoleon said. Ilya’s hand was very warm against his nape, and he was biting very gently on Napoleon’s lower lip, and someone was making the most embarrassing noises of encouragement – distantly Napoleon realized that it might have been him.

"Are you..." he started to say, but Ilya cut him off with a growl.

“Yes,” Ilya said, between kisses.

 

By the time Ilya rolled far enough away from him for Napoleon’s second thoughts to re-emerge, the game’s layout was long lost: someone had kicked the board off the bed, and Napoleon’s hips and thighs felt bruised from chess pieces digging into him.

He could probably drive Ilya wild using one of those chess pieces. Pawns didn’t have sharp edges; he could use one to tease Ilya open, until he was threatening Napoleon into letting him climax, or until he pleaded for more. Napoleon wasn’t picky.

Shame that they’d have to throw it out afterwards, and there was no real way of cleaning it beforehand, either.

He flopped onto his back on the bed, possibly onto one of the queens, since it felt especially sharp against the back of his thigh, and said, “Don’t cook breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“You’ll do it?” Ilya’s tone was offensively disbelieving.

Napoleon could say _No,_ and kiss him again. It didn’t feel like the moment.

“I’m thinking hash browns,” he said. There was a place for classics, and he’d learned how to make them from a guy in the Army who’d been a short-order cook. Harris could do things with scraps that Napoleon still had happy memories of, even after eating multi-course tasting menus in some of the finest restaurants in the world.

Ilya shifted, turning onto his side. “All right,” he said. He was almost smiling.

 

Napoleon made a gesture towards resuming the kissing, after they’d dressed for bed, but Ilya flushed, hand tightening over Napoleon’s ribs - ow - and said, “I’m very tired.”

Although Napoleon’s cover file was fairly detailed about his preferences - he’d written it as _womanizing, possibly compensating for homosexual tendencies_ , because while he wasn’t compensating for anything, no one would believe it - Ilya’s was empty of such references, and Napoleon suspected the consequences for him would be much more severe.

If Ilya was having second thoughts, Napoleon would let him go. They might not play chess again - that would be too intimate, especially for a player of Ilya's caliber - but he was glad of Ilya’s friendship, and glad to have Ilya at his back in every mission he went on. Sex would be fun, but wasn’t necessary.

“All right,” he said, and rubbed his thumb behind Ilya’s ear, then drew his hands away.

Ilya fell asleep quickly. Maybe he really had been tired. He’d done enough chores for Anna that it was possible.

 

Napoleon woke before Ilya did, thought about getting out of bed to go make breakfast, and in a fit of hopeful expectation decided not to, instead managing to crawl over Ilya without waking him and steal one of the books on the nightstand.

It wasn’t Tolstoy, thank God, but for his sins it was Rilke.

“You,” Napoleon told Ilya, who snuffled a little, “have grim taste in reading, my friend.”

 

Ilya woke eventually, squinted up at Napoleon, groaned, and dragged the pillow over his own face.

“I had no idea you hated mornings so much,” Napoleon said cheerfully, though he wasn’t sure if that reaction was flattering or insulting.

“It’s that smile,” Ilya said, muffled through the pillow. “Makes me want to count the silver.”

“Don’t be insulting,” Napoleon said. “There isn’t any here.”

Ilya pulled the pillow off his head far enough to glare at Napoleon one-eyed, and it was so unexpectedly charming that Napoleon set the book aside and slid down the headboard to kiss him.

Ilya was gratifyingly responsive, and his hand rested heavy at the back of Napoleon’s neck, keeping him close. Napoleon wasn’t as gentlemanly; he had a hand at the small of Ilya’s back, fingertips tucked under the waist of his borrowed sleep pants.

There was a moment, when the intensity of the kissing eased somewhat, that Napoleon felt Ilya's arms tense, Ilya clearly weighing the benefits of dragging Napoleon back in again.

"Come here," Napoleon said, and helped him make the decision.

Their necking was interrupted, eventually, by Ilya’s stomach. Ilya looked flatteringly mutinous about it, as if he considered ignoring it in favor of, Napoleon hoped, something more than a lot of kissing and a little light groping. But then Ilya took a deep breath, sat up, and got out of bed.

Ilya was flushed through to his throat, mouth bitten-red, and when he looked back at Napoleon - still under the sheets, thankfully, but with cold spots seeping through from where Ilya’s share of the covers was pushed back - he shifted, awkwardly. 

Napoleon tamped down the urge to lick his lips and smile. He wasn’t sure whether Ilya would bolt, or come back to bed, if he did. Instead he propped himself up on one elbow and offered, “I promised you breakfast.”

“It’s not a morning after,” Ilya said. “We haven’t had sex yet.”

_Yet_ felt like a promise, and Napoleon couldn’t stop his smile at the sound of it.

“Careful - if I didn’t like cooking, that might sound like a good bargain.”

Ilya hummed agreeably, put on a sweater, and went into the kitchen. The sounds of bread-slicing and the stove being lit made their way into the bedroom, so Napoleon struggled out of bed and went to where the food was.

Ilya gave him an exasperated look when he limped into the kitchen.

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’m not reading Rilke while you make toast.”

“You could read Tolstoy,” Ilya said, and smirked at the look on Napoleon’s face. “Sit.”

Napoleon put his foot up on the other chair, relieved. “Is there anything to read here that isn’t grim?”

“I think there’s some science fiction somewhere,” Ilya said, flipping the toast to check it for doneness and then dishing it up onto a plate. It smelled good, and was nicely crisp, with a light golden sheen, just the way Napoleon liked it.

“Now you’re just being contrary.” Napoleon leaned forward for the butter dish that had been left on the table.

“There weren’t more of your torrid Italian romances?”

“Not unless they’re on a higher shelf. How do you like your toast?”

“Jam,” Ilya said.

There was jam, possibly strawberry, on the counter. It was too far to reach, so Napoleon left Ilya to his own devices on that front. “I’d even read de Beauvoir, at this point.”

“You truly are desperate,” Ilya said, the both of them having sat through Gaby reading the entirety of _Le Deuxième Sexe_ in German translation on a long, very boring mission in Strasbourg. Napoleon suspected Gaby had enjoyed his and Ilya’s discomfort, both at the book and the mission.

“Desperate would be Hawthorne,” Napoleon said, through a bite of toast. He moved his foot long enough for Ilya to sit at the table with some more toast, then put his foot on Ilya’s thigh, for lack of anywhere more annoying. “I read _The Scarlet Letter_ in ninth grade.”

“And?”

“Moralizing. You?”

"Selected correspondence of Lenin," Ilya said, with a grimace. "You have not heard me say this."

Napoleon pantomimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key, while Ilya devoted himself to the toast.

 

Some time later, the pretense of a chess game abandoned and the pieces safely stowed on the nightstand, when Napoleon’s jaw ached from kissing and his hands were pressed flat against Ilya’s back under his shirt, they paused to readjust positions. Napoleon took the opportunity to say, “Do you mind if I undress? I haven’t embarrassed myself while in clothing since,” six months into his deployment, when one of the soldiers ensuring the delivery of some art to Wiesbaden caught his eye and the feeling was mutual, “I was much younger and more eager.”

“Should I be insulted?” Ilya asked, but he let go of Napoleon to sit up and start taking off the borrowed sweater, shirt, and undershirt. There was a line of dark-gold hair down Ilya's stomach, which Napoleon knew from touch and from a few instances of field medicine, but it felt newly captivating as Ilya dragged his clothes off.

Ilya was solid, beneath all those layers, muscles shifting in his stomach for balance as he drew his undershirt over his head, and his chest seemed even broader when bare.

"I think it counts as flattery." Napoleon said, and went for the buttons on his sleep-shirt.

The mattress shifted, probably from Ilya getting off it to remove his pants. "If even you aren't sure..." Yes, from the sound of it, definitely pants removal. Napoleon glanced up and couldn't help the ensuing smile; Ilya was deeply handsome, and unashamed of his nakedness: not proud, but unconcerned with Napoleon's opinion of his body.

"I'm sure now," Napoleon said, and dropped his own pants.

By the time Napoleon had finished wrangling himself out of his clothes - having to balance on his bad ankle wasn't exactly fun or graceful - and sat down on the edge of the mattress, Ilya was lying on his side in bed, watching Napoleon expectantly. "Which was it?"

"Very definitely flattery," Napoleon said, lying down and shifting forward to kiss him again.

Ilya’s hand was gentle on Napoleon’s side, and Napoleon found that he liked it. He wasn’t usually fond of gentle, but it felt like trust, and he wanted that to stay. Wanted more of it.

“Let me -” he started, and rolled on top instead of finishing the sentence.

Ilya’s hands were warm, calluses a little rough, against Napoleon’s back, and his stomach was - well. Napoleon shifted against him, experimentally and very pleasantly, and Ilya’s hands pulled him in tighter, which indicated success from his perspective as well.

Good.

“Like that?” Napoleon asked, partly just to be sure but mostly to tease, and Ilya snorted into his hair.

“Yes, like that,” Ilya said, a little dryly. Napoleon took that as encouragement, bracing his hand on Ilya’s shoulder for leverage and pressing his mouth to Ilya’s collarbones, as he began to move.

Ilya sighed, sounding pleased, and skimmed a hand down Napoleon’s spine, just as Napoleon’s entire side flared up in pain.

“Fuck!” He froze, panting, and Ilya’s hands left him.

“Napoleon?”

“Ribs,” he managed, through gritted teeth. “I need to -” and Ilya must’ve understood what he meant, because Ilya turned them, taking the pressure off. Napoleon kept his back as straight as he could and left his face against Ilya’s skin, still unsteady with the remnants of pain. “I’m usually better at this.”

“Extenuating circumstances.” Ilya’s arm was draped along Napoleon’s hip, thumb brushing delicately over the small of his back. “If you lie on your back, and let me…”

Napoleon took stock of the situation: the pain had almost completely faded, his body seemed willing to cooperate with another attempt at previously scheduled activities, and he very much wanted this to continue.

“All right,” he said, and tipped onto his back.

“We’ll do it like that some other time,” Ilya suggested, sitting up and maneuvering until he was kneeling over Napoleon’s hips. God, was he handsome. Napoleon fully intended to leave a trail of bites down Ilya’s chest at some point - but then, he wanted to put his mouth and his hands everywhere on Ilya, really.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Napoleon suggested, deliberately cheeky, and urged Ilya to lean forwards.

Ilya braced his elbows on the mattress and stretched out on top, but kept most of his weight off Napoleon - more of a gentleman than Napoleon wanted, but about what he could take - and rocked against him. He was warm, not too heavy in this position, and his stomach was exactly what Napoleon needed.

“Like that?” Ilya said, a knowing little echo of Napoleon’s own words.

“Like that,” Napoleon said, and then, because he suspected Ilya might enjoy it, “Please, Ilya.”

Ilya made a low noise of sudden arousal and started to move, slow but not overly careful; Napoleon said, again, “please,” wrapping his arms over Ilya’s back for the pleasure of touching him, and Ilya kept going.

Ilya’s breath was hot in Napoleon’s hair, and his back was quickly slick with sweat under Napoleon’s hands, Napoleon aching to move in time with him yet holding himself still. It was an exquisite exercise in patience, and Napoleon spent most of it grasping at Ilya’s backside, urging him on, both of them panting for breath.

The easy rhythmic slide was reassuring as well as satisfying; Napoleon liked that they fit without too much prompting. When the time came - and it would come; one of the great pleasures of male lovers was getting fucked - he was going to enjoy Ilya inside him. He wanted it _already_.

He told Ilya that. It made Ilya groan, shove harder against Napoleon's hip, and speed up; Napoleon wrapped a leg around one of Ilya's, trying to get him closer, which Ilya, to Napoleon's arousal, ignored.

It didn't take long, after that: Napoleon didn't try to resist the tide of his pleasure. Ilya was clearly waiting for him, so it seemed more gracious to let go.

Ilya slid off him, smearing the mess between them and half-onto the sheets. He looked debauched: sweaty, hair in disarray, flushed through to his collarbones, belly wet, spent cock softening against his thigh. Napoleon wanted a painting in the style of the Italian Renaissance of just that image: _Ganymede at Rest_ , maybe.

He leaned in, careful of his ribs, and kissed Ilya slow and lingering. Ilya's hand resting on Napoleon's side seemed infinitely gentle, and Napoleon felt, lightly, regret: Ilya was kinder than either of them wanted to admit, and Napoleon wasn't.

Ilya bit Napoleon's lip.

"You did not destroy my virtue," Ilya said, warm against Napoleon's mouth, and Napoleon thought wildly and darkly that if the KGB training hadn't done it, then some deviant sex couldn't, but he didn't say that.

"Good," he said. "I have plans for this bed."

Ilya settled again, cheek pressed to the white cotton sheets, eyes closed, a small smile on his face. “Not immediately. But before dinner with Anna and her uncle, yes.”

“Definitely not during,” Napoleon said, ran a hand through Ilya’s hair, and decided that if Ilya wasn’t going to leave the bed to clean them up, he certainly wasn’t.

 

Ilya was reading - Rilke, like a glutton for punishment - though still naked when Napoleon woke from a light doze.

“Lunch?” Ilya offered.

“Not when you’ve gone to all the trouble to stay undressed,” Napoleon said, and kissed his hip, since it was nearby.

 

Eventually, Ilya massaging his jaw but looking rightfully very pleased with himself, they took a bath, dressed, and shut the door to the bedroom. Lunch - the promised hash browns - was produced, and a few uninterrupted routs on the chessboard were performed.

Anna came by with some crutches just before dinnertime, a little earlier than either of them was quite expecting her. They were at least both dressed, if only in undershirts.

Napoleon hobbled, with some help, down to Anna’s house, where her uncle, the town doctor, soon joined them.

The doctor, Ernst, was about fifty, nearly as tall as Ilya, and had smile lines around his eyes.

“It’s good to finally meet you, rather than your injuries!” he said, shaking Napoleon’s hand heartily. “I’m glad to see that you’re recovering well.”

“As well as I can,” Napoleon allowed, but he desperately wanted a chair; it hadn’t been a long walk, but his injured ankle, the cracked ribs, and the still-deeply bruised shoulder were all on the same side.

“Michael,” Ilya said, in English, and it felt like a shock of cold water, hearing the care with which Ilya uttered the name, “you should sit.”

“Yes, all right,” and he let Ilya pull out a chair at the table for him. They were going to have to talk about that much care: it wasn’t illegal in Switzerland, but it was too close to what had actually happened between them.

The dinner itself was a modest affair: mashed potatoes and beef stew that Anna served in a scorching-hot clay pot; more of her delicious homemade bread (though Napoleon could admit, if only in the privacy of his mind, that he enjoyed Ilya's much more); fermented cabbage with apples. Napoleon found himself discussing the recipe with Anna, who was absolutely delighted to share what was apparently a family recipe preserved for several generations. Ilya kept his expression neutral, but Napoleon realized he was listening avidly; he'd have to ask about that some other time. The doctor, who insisted that they call him by his first name, mostly kept to himself - Napoleon got the impression that he didn't talk much about anything but local gossip and things related to his profession.

"So how did you two meet?" Anna said as she brought out dessert (carrot cake - he'd have to ask about that one, too) and poured them all coffee. "It must be quite a story!"

"Anna, dear," the doctor said, but they both were watching him and Ilya intently, keen on any juicy details.

"I met him in a public restroom, of all places," Ilya said, before Napoleon could come up with anything suitably impersonal. "He was being strangled half to death by some completely unsavory fellow."

Ilya's cheeks went faintly pink as he said it; Napoleon stared in horrified fascination. He didn't know if it was Ilya essentially calling himself a completely unsavory fellow, or Peril apparently being able to say such things in polite company without batting an eye.

"Really?" Anna said, her brows drawn together in consternation. "Why?"

"Differences of opinion on international politics, I believe," Ilya said with a small shrug, completely deadpan. "I don't know; I never asked."

Napoleon could see the doctor smiling faintly behind his hand. Anna was grinning outright; Ilya looked back at his cup, affecting the disposition of the entirely unconcerned. Napoleon would never have said anything this personal, this close to actual truth, but apparently bluntness was appreciated here.

“My hero,” Napoleon said, affecting a besotted smile to turn in Ilya’s direction, and not quite letting it fade as he turned back to his coffee, “and yes, international politics.” He thought briefly of adding, _There was also a matter involving a woman,_ but that would undercut the cover story they were developing, so he let the clear implication stand for itself. A public restroom, really? Did Ilya even know - he must; Napoleon thought Ilya’s apartment was in the Village somewhere.

“And you weren’t hurt?”

“Only my pride and my clothing. Not like the other day,” Napoleon said, waving at his leg where it was propped up on a stool.

“You seem to make a habit of getting yourself into trouble,” Ernst said.

Napoleon opened his mouth to make some token protest, but Ilya, as he’d hoped, jumped in with, “He does.” There was a quick sideways glance he threw Napoleon, though, as if to say, _I know what you’re doing_.

Napoleon smiled back. It was always a pleasure to be understood.

Anna dropped her fork with a clatter, and both Ilya and Napoleon looked at her; Ilya shifted in his chair, trying for awkwardness but mostly gauging if there was some danger. Napoleon didn’t hear anything, either.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled, cheeks pink. “Did you want more coffee?”

Ilya cleared his throat, glancing at Napoleon and then at his coffee cup, straightening the spoon on the saucer. “Yes, please.”

While she was up and in the kitchen, Ernst leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table - it was a well-fitting jacket, and cut flatteringly; Napoleon appreciated the thought that had to have been put into it - and said, “So what brings you to Switzerland?”

“Skiing,” Napoleon said, then added an edge more fatuousness to his smile. “It’s a good time of year for a vacation.”

“Oh?”

“Every time of year’s a good time for vacation,” Napoleon added, in an imitation of the husband of one of his mother’s friends, a particularly obnoxious and particularly wealthy political scion who had no ambitions whatsoever.

“You have no commitments elsewhere?”

“What, like work?” Napoleon scoffed, though he caught Ilya’s frustrated expression, so he might have been laying it on too thick. “No, that’s Ian.”

“Michael is very persuasive,” Ilya said agreeably, and took the cup that Anna, emerging from the kitchen, held out to him. ”Thank you. I’m an architectural engineer at a small firm; they’re very accommodating of changes in my schedule. Like when Michael decides on a surprise vacation in the Alps.”

Napoleon shrugged. “I thought it would be a nice change before Thanksgiving.” He turned towards Anna and winked. “His mother’s a terror.”

“You speak very good German,” Ernst said, unfazed, though Anna had gone pink.

“A dissolute lifestyle,” Napoleon said. “Well, he studied.” He was beginning to not like the tenor of the doctor’s questions: he was well aware he didn’t have the scars of a rich layabout.

“And you _have_ met his mother?” Anna asked. She sounded surprised.

“Unwillingly,” Ilya said. “She, um, doesn’t like him much.” As well she might not, Napoleon thought. Definitely not if one were sharing a homosexual lifestyle with her son. He doubted Mrs. Kuryakina would feel even half so kindly.

“She all but tried to poison my soup,” he drawled. “Fortunately, we were eating at a restaurant at the time.”

“That must be difficult.”

“Not really,” Ilya said, and fidgeted with his spoon again. “My mother doesn’t live nearby. We don’t talk much.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Anna did sound genuinely upset - Napoleon wondered, suddenly, if her singlehood was due to her preferences, rather than a deficit of available men. “You said you do architectural engineering? What does that involve?”

“I help design buildings,” Ilya said. “It has some overlap with architecture.”

Napoleon went back to his coffee, affecting boredom and watching Ernst watch them. He was playing with his watch, probably some kind of nervous tic, but Napoleon didn’t know the man well enough to extrapolate from there.

 

They made their way back to the chalet after another half-hour or so of small talk, and Ilya swept for bugs while Napoleon kept up a certain amount of inane in-character chatter, to which Ilya responded only sporadically.

By the time Napoleon was winding up a story he’d stolen in its entirety from his father - it involved several amateur golfers whose names couldn’t be repeated due to their recognizable day jobs, a peacock, and a cheese sandwich - Ilya was on the last room, and right as Napoleon finished the punchline, Ilya said, “We’re clear.”

“Thank God; I hate that story,” Napoleon said, and drained his glass of water. “What do you think of Onkel Ernst?”

“I think he knows more than he wants us to think he does,” Ilya said. “And he’s not very good at trying to find out what we know.”

“Everyone needs medical care,” Napoleon said.

“And the traveling between towns gives him the opportunity to go to the base and not raise suspicions.” Ilya nodded, decisively. “We’ll have to observe him more closely.”

“Yeah,” Napoleon agreed, and then, “Are you sure we should be letting them assume that we’re lovers?”

“Letting?” Ilya’s eyebrows went up. “I thought you did it deliberately.”

“No,” Napoleon said. He wouldn’t, not when he and Ilya really were having sex.

“When you first met Anna,” Ilya said, shoulders going tight. “You said you were lucky to have me. The interpretation seemed obvious. Anna took it that way.”

“I didn’t intend it,” Napoleon said, carefully. Was Ilya hurt? Hard to tell. “It gives cover to what we’re actually doing, if nothing else.”

“‘Actually doing,’” Ilya repeated, a little skeptical. “By which you mean having sex.”

“That too,” Napoleon said. What did Ilya’s body language mean? Tight shoulders, hands open at his sides, weight evenly distributed between his feet, knees loose - Napoleon couldn’t read him, and it was frustrating. “Yes, I’m suggesting that we cover up the fact that we’ve been having sex by implying that we’re having sex.”

Ilya made an _I can’t believe I’m hearing this_ face. “Because being a lost pair of homosexuals -” Napoleon liked that word in his mouth; it sounded arousingly ugly - “is less suspicious than being lost agents.”

“It’s certainly more plausible,” Napoleon said, then added, “especially if Anna finds us in a compromising position.”

“Because we can’t be both lost homosexuals _and_ spies,” Ilya said, dryly.

“I’m not,” Napoleon said. “I mean, you’ve read my file.”

“ _Womanizing, possibly compensating for homosexual tendencies_. I remember. You aren’t fearful enough by nature to be compensating.”

Napoleon found himself grinning, conspiratorial: Ilya knew him well. “No.”

“I didn’t think so,” Ilya said, and sat down in the stuffed chair on the other side of the room. “You want Anna to find us in a compromising position. To help our cover.”

“Well,” Napoleon said. “Is it going to be that difficult?”

“I suppose not,” Ilya said, leaning back in the chair. His trouser leg hems rode up, showing ill-fitting black wool socks that had fallen down to reveal the bottoms of his shins. Napoleon wasn't especially fond of feet, sexually speaking, but that small swath of skin made him think of kissing his way up Ilya’s ankles and calves.

Ilya stayed in the chair.

Napoleon had been hoping that Ilya would take his question as an invitation, but apparently not. Oh well. He looked plenty good like that, and Napoleon knew what to do with works of art.

"In the meantime," he said, "There are depressing novels to read. Mind handing me one?"

Ilya rolled his eyes, skimmed his fingers along the spines of the books stacked on the side table, and selected one that he tossed over.

Dante's _Divine Comedy_ , in modern Italian.

"Very funny," Napoleon said, but he opened it anyway.

 

The sheets needed washing, but there wasn’t time to do it before they slept, so Napoleon - no stranger to worse and dirtier places to lay his head - found himself curled up in a bed that smelled of sex and Ilya’s skin. It was distracting. It was also enticing: when he awakened, Ilya was close beside him, breathing steadily and with occasional snuffles, and Napoleon could nearly taste the kiss they would share if Napoleon woke him.

“Found myself within a forest dark," Napoleon muttered to himself, resigned.

“You talk too much," Ilya said, sleepily, but instead of turning away as Napoleon half-expected him to, he slid closer and put his arm around Napoleon.

Napoleon thought of retorting, _You knew that when you got into this bed with me_ , but it felt too sharp for the moment, for the grounding weight of Ilya's arm at his waist and the press of Ilya's chest against his back. The sweep of Ilya's breath in the hair at the back of his neck. It was a comfort he wanted to keep.

He closed his eyes.

 

He woke again, sun shining into the room, to the murmur of Ilya on the phone in the next room. He lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth and stretching as best he could until it started to hurt, before the receiver clicked back into place and Ilya padded back in.

"Gaby," Ilya said, when he noticed Napoleon was awake, and started to draw down the covers. "She says they expect another couple of days before they can clear the roads. Otherwise she's very bored."

“So she’s taken to repairing everyone’s cars.”

Ilya waved a hand ambivalently. “Or she is reading Analysis briefings.”

They looked at each other.

“Car repair,” Napoleon said, definitively, and Ilya smiled like Napoleon had said something clever, and got back in bed.

It was, naturally, much warmer with him there. It only seemed proper to disrobe.

Around the time Napoleon decided to lend a hand to Ilya’s efforts, there was a knock on the door. They froze, Napoleon tilting his head up enough to meet Ilya’s eyes, and Ilya said, quietly and breathlessly, “You’re the one who wanted to get caught.”

“Damn,” Napoleon said, uncurled his hand from around Ilya’s, and watched him shuffle out of bed, drag on pants and a shirt, and make his way unsteadily to the door. Ilya put his hand on the latch, but didn’t unlock it.

“Yes?”

“It’s Anna,” she called, through the door. “I wanted to make sure everything was okay. I have some more potatoes, since you said you needed them.”

Napoleon couldn’t see much from the bedroom, which was just as well, but he could imagine Ilya’s jaw tensing in aggravation before he opened the door. Napoleon would probably have knocked his forehead against the door once or twice before opening it, so Ilya was being fairly restrained, he thought.

“Oh!” Anna said, once the clicking of the latches was finished and the door apparently open. “I didn’t realize I was -”

Ilya made an inquisitive yet nevertheless repressing noise, and she didn’t finish the sentence.

“Thank you,” he said, potatoes likely having been exchanged. The door shut and locked, and Ilya padded into the kitchen, then returned.

Napoleon, having had to resort to desperate measures to stay warm while Ilya was out of bed, grinned out from inside a tangle of sheets.

“I borrowed yours; you weren’t using them,” he said.

Ilya’s eyebrows rose a little further. “And will I get them back?”

Napoleon let go of a corner. “In exchange for something.”

“Oh?” Ilya’s mouth had started curling up, and his eyes were bright.

“Nothing you won’t like,” Napoleon promised, and stretched out a hand. The sheets wrapped close around him loosened a little further.

“I don’t make promises if I don’t know what I’m promising,” Ilya said, but he took Napoleon’s hand and knelt on the mattress, leaning forward to give Napoleon a kiss.

Napoleon let him in, eager, and curled a hand at the back of Ilya’s head to keep him close. “I’m not going to let you promise anything until you take all that off again.”

“You are,” Ilya said, voice rough, “very demanding.”

“Mm,” Napoleon hummed, noncommittal, and then once Ilya’s pants were off, added, “ _Look_ at you.”

Ilya looked down at himself - he probably didn’t see anything special, from wearing that body all the time - and shrugged.

As Napoleon let go of the sheets and Ilya spread them out enough that he could be said to be getting back in bed, Ilya said, “Well?”

Napoleon waited until Ilya was wrapped around him, knees bumping together and Ilya’s arm draped over his side, before he took hold of Ilya, careful, and said, “This.” He dragged his thumb over the tip. “I want this in me.”

Ilya hardened in his grasp, and pushed into his space to kiss him, deeply and very intent, hand skimming further down Napoleon’s body to spread wide at the top of Napoleon’s thigh.

“Okay,” Ilya said, eventually, breathless. “How do you like - “ and the thoughtfulness of it made Napoleon kiss him again, right as he remembered that his bag, and the relevant multipurpose supplies in it, were three towns down the mountain.

He laughed against the corner of Ilya’s mouth. “I forgot I left my bag somewhere else.”

“What do you -” Ilya started, then his nose wrinkled - it was nice to feel it from this close - and he said, “I’m not - no, Napoleon.”

“Definitely not,” Napoleon agreed, squeezing a little bit and feeling Ilya’s eyes fall shut in pleasure. “But…” How to say this without breaking the mood?

Ilya made a low noise. “That tone of voice is unnerving. It usually means exploding complications.”

“Slander,” Napoleon said easily. “Just touch me, then.”

Ilya’s hand slid up, light along his skin; then he brushed his fingertips where Napoleon wanted them, and Napoleon said, “If you were going to tease, that would be where.”

He could hear Ilya’s swallow. “Like you’re teasing now.”

Napoleon meant to respond, but Ilya stroked him again, more firmly but to the side, and he decided it wasn’t worth interrupting Ilya for.

Ilya traced his rim, then just outside it, slightly too gentle, and Napoleon shifted into his touch, then remembered what his own hand was supposed to be doing.

Ilya grunted, and the sudden redirection of his attention made him more eager with Napoleon: his touch became slightly more confident, more persuasive. He brushed light, teasing fingers up, each pushing just a little, then down, more firmly. Napoleon retaliated by giving him a slow squeeze, and Ilya rocked into his hand.

They worked each other up, like that, until Napoleon was gasping against Ilya’s jaw, breathless with hunger, pressing against Ilya’s fingers and wishing he could, just this once, have it dry. Ilya was heavy in his hand, movements erratic, and when he came it was with a shudder.

Napoleon kissed his jaw, feeling a little deprived and very desperate, and transferred the hand he’d been using on Ilya to himself. It was slickly wet, and the space between them smelled of Ilya’s release.

It was almost too good, in combination with Ilya’s renewed attention. Napoleon was shaking with tension, caught between his own and Ilya’s hands, and then Ilya pushed two blunt fingers against him, hard, nearly enough to breach him, and Napoleon came, messily, into his own hand and over Ilya’s stomach.

Ilya kissed him slowly, holding him close, and Napoleon was glad to stay.

 

"So," Napoleon said, as they cleaned up with a corner of the sheet and curled up together again, for lack of anything better to do, "Onkel Ernst. THRUSH sympathizer, or just naturally paranoid?"

"You know which one I'd pick as the first working hypothesis," Ilya said, running his fingers over Napoleon’s back. "He has opportunity and the means. Most of your scars are old enough to be - what did you call it?"

"Youthful indiscretions," Napoleon supplied. "Say he is a devoted follower of the damned bird and grew suspicious of us because we looked too battered to be hapless tourists. Would he keep any tangible evidence of his activities?"

"No," Ilya said. "Anna helps him sometimes around the house. She would know."

"Unless she'd never talk about it because she's also THRUSH."

"She never leaves town," Ilya said, "There isn't anything here for THRUSH to want - no military bases, no scientists, no labs. No privacy, either - too many tourists, during season. And Anna isn't hiding from anyone. She has an affair with the baker's daughter, Eliza." At Napoleon's incredulous look he added, "She came by while I was changing the lightbulbs. They weren't exactly subtle."

"So what do you think we should look for?" Napoleon said. "A THRUSH wall of achievement? Pictures? Did you know Rudi Teller had entire photo albums of torture victims? I wonder where he usually kept them." A shudder ran through him. He didn't think himself too sensitive to human cruelty anymore, not after all the years with the CIA, but the long minutes of being utterly vulnerable and helpless in that basement were apparently going to stay with him for a while.

Ilya's arm tightened around him. He closed his eyes and leaned into Ilya’s shoulder, and almost said, _I spent years trying to find men like him and I didn’t spot him_ , before he remembered to stop himself.

“Someplace he knew no one would see it,” Ilya said, then, “Anna wouldn’t look under floorboards or in his bedroom.”

There was a time, Napoleon knew, when the thought of searching a jolly old man’s bedroom would have shocked him. He had probably been fifteen and thought that going off to Europe in the middle of a war would be a great adventure, like a Grand Tour.

_That stupid bastard_ , he thought fondly.

“I once hid in a folding army bed, during tactical exercises," Ilya said. As attempts to lighten the mood went, it wasn't the smoothest one, but Napoleon appreciated it anyway. Ilya's voice rumbled in his chest where Napoleon’s ear was pressed to it, and he was drawing idle patterns on the back of Napoleon’s neck.

It took a long moment to process what he was hearing. “How is that even possible?” Napoleon asked, puzzled.

“You see," Ilya said, shifting a little to free his arm, “The mattress, it sags. If you turn a certain way, you can fit into the depression. The trick is to pull the covers tight enough to make it look like the bed is made and unoccupied."

He smoothed out a small patch of the blanket to demonstrate.

Napoleon stared up at him.

“You were playing hooky," he said, in wonder.

“A friend I served with was there, too," Ilya said with a mischievous smile. “He was just heading out when the door opened. He hid among the coats on the hangers. Just, you know, stretched out his over his back and stood very still. The commanding officer didn’t notice us."

By that point, Napoleon was pressing one hand to his aching ribs and shaking with silent laughter.

"And you got away with it," he managed, wiping his eyes. "Slacking off. You, a Soviet Army soldier."

"We were officers," Ilya said. "I was a communications engineer. We just pretended we were busy elsewhere, later, and no one questioned it."

“I’m sure they didn’t,” Napoleon said, thinking of the photo in Ilya’s file of him in uniform, looking terribly young and even more forbidding, and comparing the man who felt like a force of nature in East Berlin to this smiling one beside him. Ilya’s happiness would have been devastating when he was young.

He kissed Ilya again, slow, and said, “Have you eaten already today?”

Somehow, Ilya resisted nearly irresistible temptation, and didn’t leer. “Not yet.”

 

When Ilya, in the middle of frying the potatoes, hissed, swore, and put the pan back on the stove, Napoleon had a fairly good idea what had happened.

“How bad is it?”

“Stings,” Ilya said, rinsing his hand.

“There a first aid kit somewhere?”

“Mm.” Ilya knelt to open some of the cupboards under the counter, dragging out a little box painted with a red cross, whereupon he stilled and turned to look at Napoleon.

Napoleon felt, abruptly, very warm.

Ilya put the box on the table, unlatched it, and set the lid to the side. There was a small tin of petroleum jelly at the bottom - big enough for their needs, if it was full - along with an extended version of the standard first aid supplies, as befitted a kit assembled by a doctor.

The jelly was barely used, when Ilya opened it to smear some over the burn on his hand.

Napoleon’s stomach growled, and he fell back laughing into the chair, which jarred his ankle even as it made his ribs flare into pain, and he was laughing and swearing at once, hand over his face, as Ilya said, exasperated, “At least now I know you don’t just feed off sex.”

“No,” Napoleon said, breathless, grinning up at him. “Definitely not, would if I could.”

“I’m sure,” Ilya sighed, and leaned forward, planting a hand on the table for balance, to kiss him. It felt like an indulgence.

“Ilya,” he said, eventually, against Ilya’s mouth. “Don’t burn the potatoes.”

Ilya jerked away, darting a panicked glance at the stove where the potatoes were, as it turned out, just edging towards overcooked.

They ate with Napoleon’s foot in Ilya’s lap, Ilya’s right hand curled around his ankle, stroking along Napoleon’s arch with his thumb.

 

There was no pretense, after that: they didn't bother to do more than scrape the dishes and leave them in the sink, and then went back into the bedroom.

Ilya took his time, careful with stretching him, and Napoleon talked through it, mostly advice and a little praise: _In, okay, slow, - not that slow, Peril - toward my front -_ and he felt that his reaction to Ilya’s fingers stroking over his prostate spoke for itself, _Ilya, there, there, yes_.

The only comfortable position for Napoleon was on his back, with pillows for support. Arranging that had been fun, too, both of them careful but ready to laugh at the awkwardness - but then Ilya bent forward, weight on his own arm, and kissed Napoleon as he slid in, full of playful affection.

Napoleon kissed him back, knocked his good ankle into Ilya's calf, and enjoyed Ilya's hiss as Napoleon tightened around him.

Ilya bit Napoleon's lip and went still. "Don't tease," he grated out. "Or you won't finish like this."

"Can't anyway," Napoleon said, but the tone of Ilya's voice made him think about Ilya making sure he didn't finish until he was pliable, and that - he couldn't decide whether he wanted to give in to that or not, because it would be good either way.

"I mean," Ilya all but growled, "that this is going to be very quick."

Napoleon kissed him again and reached down between them.

 

Ernst had extracted a promise as they were leaving the dinner that 'Michael' would come to his house to have his injuries checked, so when Napoleon saw Ernst had returned from his circuit of visits, Napoleon - Ilya helping him hobble along - went.

The doctor's house was well-kept up but not lavish, in line with Napoleon's impression of him from his clothing, and the knocker on the door was a charming little brass sculpture of some kind of gargoyle that Napoleon, in other circumstances, would have felt obliged to at least joke about pocketing. It didn't quite seem the kind of thing a doctor of steady but modest means would choose - not reassuring to prospective patients.

Ernst welcomed them in effusively, and provided a padded table he clearly used for exams, that Napoleon could sit on.

"All right, shirts off, let me look at those ribs," he said, putting his hands close to the fire he had burning in the hearth.

Ilya helped, more conscientious than was his usual wont, hands skimming along Napoleon's skin in Ian's worry.

After his clothing was duly shed, Napoleon took Ilya's hands, squeezed them reassuringly, and let go.

Ernst, warm-handed but cold-stethoscoped, felt at Napoleon's side, checking his ribs, having him take a variety of breaths. Napoleon used the time to make faces at Ilya over Ernst's head, to which Ilya only rolled his eyes.

"You," Ernst pronounced finally, "were not supposed to be exerting yourself. At this rate you'll be in pain for a good three months." He turned to Ilya. "Keep him in bed and out of trouble."

"I'll try," Ilya said, wide-eyed rather than sardonic.

"You can put your shirts back on," Ernst gestured to the small puddle of cloth beside Napoleon's hip. "Then sock off."

While testing Napoleon’s ankle, Ernst offered, “You said you were injured while skiing - up on the slopes to the south of town, was it?”

“Yes. It wasn’t a good decision.” Ilya shifted in feigned awkwardness.

“There was an avalanche," Ernst said slowly. "I think I heard - there was a business there whose building was damaged." He looked up briefly at Napoleon, as if waiting for confirmation. "A lot of people are moving away.”

“Are they?" Ilya said. He still talked like 'Ian', but his posture changed: less hesitant expat living in America, more KGB agent on high alert. "If the business had to close, they’ll want new jobs.”

“It sounded like a company transfer," Ernst said, eyes focused again on Napoleon's ankle, fingers probing around the joint, and Napoleon could see Ilya casing the room quickly, efficiently - identifying what he could possibly use as a weapon, no doubt.

“That’s lucky," Napoleon drawled. "They must be taking a lot of your business with them, though.”

“A few.” Ernst released Napoleon’s foot. “That’s doing fine; just stay off it.”

“I promise,” Napoleon said, and winked at Ilya over Ernst’s head, but where Ernst would see.

“I didn’t remember the name of the company, but it must be good working for them,” Ernst said, turning to watch them both. There was something in his expression Napoleon couldn't easily identify. “It must be a very big one.”

“If they’re moving people right away, they must be,” Ilya said.

“Must be. Would you like to stay for tea?” Ernst offered, as Napoleon put his sock back on and slid off the exam table, careful of his ankle. Ilya steadied him, absently, with a hand at his elbow.

Napoleon wordlessly raised his eyebrows at Ilya.

“Thank you," Ilya said, “but we should probably be going. We’ve abused your hospitality too much as it is."

“Oh, pity," Ernst said airily, and turned to rummage in his doctor’s handbag, which stood, open, on the nearest side-table. “I’ll give you extra-strength aspirin for your ankle. Take two a day for the next week."

Ilya was frowning at Ernst; Napoleon saw his hand twitch just barely towards an ornate letter-opener lying on the writing desk a few feet away.

“Hang on a moment," Ernst said, “Ah, there it is." He lifted a small packet of pills from his bag, scribbled the required dosage on the side. Ilya took it, carefully, and slid it into his pocket; Ernst watched them both, smiling faintly. Napoleon had no intention of taking it: he didn’t like the way this conversation was going, and didn’t trust the pills to be what Ernst said they were, Hippocratic Oath or no.

“We should be going," Ilya said, again, just as Napoleon said, “Thank you so much for your help."

“I’d be a poor doctor if I turned down people in need," Ernst said, as they put on their shoes and coats. “Oh! And I remembered the name of the company," he rummaged again in the handbag. “I think it was called – ‘Starling’? No, ‘Thrush’ – like the bird." He looked up at Napoleon, then at Ilya. “Ring any bells?”

Both Napoleon and Ilya moved – Napoleon forward, one hand going to their one remaining gun in his coat pocket, Ilya to the side - only to be greeted by the glint of a small pistol in the doctor’s hand, pointing right at Ilya’s chest.

“Tut, tut," Ernst said. “That knife on the desk is entirely decorative, I assure you. This isn’t, though." If he was going to shoot, it would be point blank; and there was nowhere to go on either side. Ernst was obviously aware of this, and raised the gun a little higher.

"Get away from him," Napoleon said. He didn’t remember pulling out his own gun, but it was now pointed straight at Ernst. He could feel a tremor starting in his bad leg, but by some miracle or other his gun hand was perfectly steady. They both stared at him.

Ernst was too close to Ilya to miss, but at this point, Napoleon wouldn't miss either.

"Now," Napoleon said, in a voice he didn't recognize.

“I don’t think,” Ernst said quietly, “that you will let me live, either way. For knowing what you are.”

“That’s not how we operate,” Napoleon said, and Ernst’s face twisted with anger and grief.

“You aren’t the first people pretending to be lost skiers who have killed people who found out about THRUSH,” he said. His gun hand didn't waver.

Napoleon didn’t like the implications of that. He glanced at Ilya, who was watching Ernst consideringly.

“We’re not THRUSH,” Ilya said. “We’re with UNCLE. The United Network Command for Law Enforcement. Its mandate is to combat THRUSH and organizations like it. We blew up the base.”

Ernst’s face tensed. “I don’t believe you.”

“Oh, good grief,” Napoleon said in English, and put away the gun. He needed to sit down and imbibe several very stiff drinks.

Ernst, clearly surprised, backed up a little, enough for Ilya to neatly disarm him without the gun being fired; he kept it pointed at the floor, and said, “Sit.”

Napoleon hobbled to a chair in the sitting room, and Ernst dropped into another, heavily, face gray. He really did look like a man expecting to be tortured and killed.

“I think we were offered tea,” Napoleon said to Ilya, who grimaced and removed himself to the kitchen.

“We’re not THRUSH,” Napoleon said. “I lost my badge in the snow somewhere a hundred feet higher than this, but I don’t think you’d trust that. Is there a police station around here?”

Ernst didn’t say anything. Damn it, if the local police were under THRUSH’s thumb, any sort of official approval would just reaffirm his belief.

“And you wouldn’t believe them anyway, because they’re under THRUSH’s control,” he said aloud, just to see Ernst’s grudging nod. “Why don’t you work for them?”

“I don’t like Nazis,” Ernst said flatly, and, well.

“Fair enough.” Napoleon leaned forward. His ankle throbbed. His shoulder ached. He was tired.

Ilya, kettle presumably now on to boil, leaned in the kitchen doorway behind Ernst, hands in his pockets. He’d hidden the gun somewhere and taken off his coat.

“Someone had to blow up the THRUSH base. If it were just a chemical accident, people wouldn’t be leaving,” he said.

"That doesn't mean it was you," Ernst insisted.

"My electric burns," Napoleon said, abruptly tired of this discussion, "Which I know you've seen. A little souvenir from a former concentration camp doctor turned THRUSH sympathiser."

Ernst's shoulders sagged. "He is dead?"

"He fried in his own torture device," Ilya said. "THRUSH won't come back here. You'll be safe."

"If you think they've returned," Napoleon started, then realized his wallet, containing his business cards with UNCLE's tip hotline, was back in the Zurich office.

"Call this number," Ilya supplied, presenting his own. Naughty - he wasn't supposed to carry information leading to his real identity on missions like this one.

"Ian Callahan?" Ernst read the card dubiously. "A nickname for Ivan, is it?"

"Something like that," Ilya said easily, and Napoleon could have kissed him. "Call that number if THRUSH returns. Someone will come investigate." His expression gentled. "You don't need to try to do spy work. Being a doctor is enough."

"It is," Ernst said, and then he stood, just as the kettle started whistling. "The tea is in the cabinet. Let me get you some cups."

"I'll do it," Ilya said, and thank goodness. Napoleon was fairly certain that Ernst wasn't THRUSH, but he really wasn't drinking anything made by hands he didn't trust.

It was, like all of Ilya's tea, as strong as coffee, and even more bitter.

 

"Well, at least you're alive," Gaby said two days later, her voice somewhat tinny over the phone. "The roads have opened up, so I'll come get you tomorrow." The line crackled.

"I'll see you," Napoleon promised. What a relief. A man could only have so many death-defying adventures before he wanted to sleep in his own bed.

 

Napoleon wasn't sure what woke him - maybe it was Ilya moving around, or maybe the distinct lack of warmth.

He opened his eyes and saw that Ilya had a blanket and a pillow in his arms and had put a sweater on over his pajamas: clear signs of someone planning to spend the night alone on the couch.

“What the," Napoleon mumbled, his mind still hazy with sleep.

“Gaby’s coming tomorrow morning," Ilya said. At least he had the grace to sound somewhat apologetic. “Didn’t think you’d want her to find us in bed together."

This ridiculous man. As if Gaby would mind. “Don’t be absurd," Napoleon said, “She won’t be standing over you bright and early, yelling like a drill sergeant for you to get up. You wake up at the crack of dawn, anyway, and even she isn’t crazy enough to drive on these roads in the dark."

“Still," Ilya said, but he was visibly wavering. Napoleon, who really didn’t care to sleep alone, pressed his advantage.

“Come here," he said, raising himself up on one elbow carefully. The blanket slipped down his bare chest, revealing a nipple; he felt it tighten in the cool air of the room.

“Come here," Napoleon said again. “Ilya."

Ilya growled under his breath and stalked over, as if pulled by an invisible force. “You," he said in a low voice, dropping the pillow and the blanket back on the bed. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but Napoleon caught him by the front of his old sweater and dragged him down for kisses and some good old-fashioned groping.

“Mmmm," he said into Ilya’s mouth, a happy sound that turned into a moan when Ilya nipped at his lips. “It’s freezing here without you." He slipped a hand under Ilya’s sweater and sleep-shirt, raked his nails lightly down Ilya’s spine. Ilya growled again and kissed him harder, pinched Napoleon’s nipple still on display – a bright, sharp twinge of pain that made heat pool low in his stomach. Ilya broke away to tug the sweater off over his head, slipped under the covers. He was a furnace, and Napoleon happily put his arms around his shoulders, a leg over his thighs.

When Napoleon woke again, Ilya was sitting up in bed, one hand in Napoleon’s hair, the other occupied by a book. Napoleon squinted at the title: _War and Peace,_ volume four. And he’d thought Ilya was too put off by the terrible translation.

“Please don’t tell me you’re reading the epilogue,” Napoleon said. “No sane person ever reads the epilogue."

“I don’t know,” Ilya said. “He has some ideas on the role of the man in history. It’s interesting."

“Shut up, shut up,” Napoleon said, tugging the book out of Ilya’s hands and pulling him down for more kisses.

 

Gaby was a sight for sore eyes: an immortally fashionable winter coat, well-cut wool trousers, and solid boots; hair pulled back under a hand-knit wool hat. Her cheeks were pink with cold, and her eyes were bright with happiness rather than fervent exhaustion.

She was wearing gloves, so he couldn’t check under her nails for motor oil, but he was sure it was there.

She hugged Ilya, and he wrapped his arms around her with a sort of saddened tenderness, like she was precious but he didn’t know how to express it. Napoleon waited until the two of them had separated before knocking his good shoulder into Ilya’s arm, fond, hoping that annoyance would lighten Ilya’s mood a little.

“Come on, time to go,” he said, and crawled gingerly into the backseat of the car.

 

Gaby was with them all the way to New York, so there was no opportunity to soften the sudden professional distance between him and Ilya.

It ached, a little: in the two days between the conversation with Ernst and Gaby picking them up, he’d gotten used to having Ilya close enough to touch whenever he wanted, and being able to. Sitting in the airplane seat next to him, smelling the remains of his aftershave as it faded over the hours, was an exquisitely terrible temptation.

There was nothing to do for it, though. There was no privacy to talk or to touch, and he knew better than to think the stewardesses weren’t checking the bathrooms for unauthorized uses. Besides, it would’ve been uncomfortable, and Gaby, sitting on Ilya's far side, would notice.

Ilya spent much of the trip sleeping, folded uncomfortably small into the airplane seat, a blanket draped over his legs. Napoleon couldn't hear his faint snoring over the roar of the engines, but he remembered it well enough to imagine he could hear it anyway.

It would probably be incriminating to pretend to fall asleep and drop his head onto Ilya's shoulder. Napoleon turned in his seat and went to sleep on his own.

 

Ilya’s passport as Ian Callahan was for British citizenship - apparently that had been easier to manage at UNCLE than American papers - so at Idlewild, Ilya and Gaby went through customs in a different line than Napoleon, who was behind a family with two elementary-school aged children who kept hitting each other.

Napoleon’s ankle ached, and his ribs hurt. He wanted to pour himself into a taxi and go back to his apartment and sleep, and wake up to - well, to the ingredients for a decent meal, and Ilya in his bed.

In the other line, Gaby was saying something to Ilya, who was watching her with a faint furrow between his brows like she was confusing him. Her back was to Napoleon, so there was no telling what she was saying.

Ilya shook his head faintly and shrugged, half-smiling.

Napoleon's line moved.

 

"I," Gaby stated, picking up her bag, one of the first ones to come off the plane, "am going to go back to my little shoebox" - she winked at Ilya - "and speak to no one, and sleep in my own bed. I’ll see you tomorrow." She proffered a wave in their direction, then strode to the taxi stand.

Napoleon watched Ilya watch the luggage pass them. Now that his real winter coat was lost somewhere in the Alps, Ilya was wearing the jacket he'd had on when they were introduced. Even this lighting didn’t quite strip all the warmth from the color. He looked comfortable, easy in himself.

Napoleon rolled up his sleeves - the airport was warm - and put his hands in his pockets. “You got plans for the evening?” he offered.

“Other than regretting the length of the report we’ll have to write?” The small crinkles at the corners of Ilya's eyes folded up. “I told you we should have borrowed Anna’s typewriter.”

“You would’ve caught literature and started writing a novel,” Napoleon said. “Something dismal.”

“Dismal science fiction,” Ilya said. “Six Martian heiresses lamenting their diminished social prospects.” His smile was like the one he’d given Napoleon two mornings ago, fond and a little teasing, but not as warm.

“I don’t think it can be dismal if they all survive,” Napoleon said.

“The common cold,” Ilya suggested, smile widening, and Napoleon wanted to kiss him. He licked his lips.

“You should read something that isn’t dismal for once. A nice comedy. Wodehouse.”

“A tragedy of class,” Ilya said. He was smiling too much to not be trying to be difficult.

“Fine,” Napoleon said. “If you must. Tanizaki.”

“I think I’ve heard the name,” Ilya said, leaning to grab his suitcase. It was plain, serviceable, and an unremarkably boring khaki.

“You should come by and look at some,” Napoleon said. “I’ll even make dinner. Since I couldn’t do my cooking skills credit while laid up in bed.”

Ilya looked at him then, evaluating. The distance in it made him seem unfamiliar, and very cold. Napoleon quirked a smile, and Ilya returned it almost instantly, the span of his shoulders softening, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You should still be in bed,” Ilya said. “Will you need help with your suitcase?”

“Yes, thank you,” Napoleon said, then, unable to stop himself from smiling, “I’ll make breakfast this time.”

**Author's Note:**

> [beili on tumblr](http://beili.tumblr.com); [Val on tumblr](http://val-mora.tumblr.com)


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